Wrong
by childliketendencies
Summary: There are times being a mother is the greatest thing on earth. And then they grow up, and fall in love, and fall out of love, and somehow you feel everything's spiralling out of control. Because things are going wrong, and you can't fix them.  Tie-in
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: This is a tie-in. It's a tie-in to the current episodes of Glee on TV, but it's also (and this will become more apparent as it goes along) a tie-in to my other story, This Space Around My Heart. It's the missing link, so to speak – the explanation of what made Finn into that broken creature who is so valiantly trying to deny himself love. I had a choice to include this as a flashback but decided against it – because I have no idea how long it will be, and how much it can still follow canon. At some point it will most likely veer off, but I kind of find it amazing that everything that happened up to this point and probably for as long as Finchel are still apart can be used as backstory. I must be the only Finchel shipper who is quite happy at the way things are going at the moment, at least when it comes to my personal writing._

_Disclaimer: I would like to thank the writers of Glee on Fox for writing Finn the way I had planned, because if they hadn't, this would be a total AU story. And it's really nice to make their version work for mine for once. (Thanks for creating them all, too – and allowing us all to play with them)_

* * *

**Wrong**

If anyone asked her how she knows, she wouldn't be able to give an explanation. Call it a kind of mother's instinct, maybe; but really it's something else. There's mother's instinct that will tell you when a scratch is just a scratch or a serious injury to your son, there's the kind of instinct that tells you when he needs a comforting word or a hug and when not; and then there's that feeling of knowing something's wrong. She's not sure that isn't an additional sixth sense instead.

There's that dreadful feeling at the pit of her stomach again. She gets it every time she catches him unawares. It's not that he does anything he shouldn't – most of those times all he seems to be doing is sitting in that chair of his that used to be Chris' – but that there's a look on his face. _That_ look. There's not one single word that will describe it, really; at least she can't think of one. She calls it his mask, and that scares her more than anything else about it. It seems the wrong word, somehow; wrong as in not right for a boy of his age and innocence. He's always been her little boy, so full of innocence and childish wonder at everything, no matter what. But whenever she finds him with that blank expression on his face, she's not sure that same boy is still there, and it scares her.

Wrong. It terrifies her.

When all the drama of Quinn Fabray and her baby happened to him last year, she was scared. For him, for Quinn, for herself, for the future… But no matter what mood he'd gone through as a result of the girl's scheming, he had still remained that same sweet boy underneath it all. Maybe a little more serious, a little less wide-eyed, but still… very much the same childlike innocence. And then he'd found Rachel, and as much as that girl could set her on edge sometimes with her attitude, she'd immediately seen the benefits Rachel's influence had on him. But she'd also, with that mother's instinct, known that there was something a little too intense about it all; just like the girl was too intense, it seemed to carry forth into everything Rachel touched. Including, and most of all, Finn.

But she doesn't want to blame Rachel.

She doesn't pretend to understand what went wrong between them. She isn't sure she even knows the whole story; in fact, maybe the first time she ever saw a hint of that mask flash across his face was the afternoon he came to "inform her of his decision to break up with Rachel", and she doesn't know if she wants to trust the Finn who talks like that. The Finn who talks like that spent most of Christmas sitting in that chair up in his room, and refused to talk to anyone about it if approached directly. It's not like she didn't try. But there's only so much you can do if your son acts like nothing is wrong besides not being able to kill some zombie overlord on level 8, even if it's blindingly obvious he wasn't playing the game until he realized you were in the room (at least in the beginning – now you know by the noises coming from his room that he is playing it, day and night, and you're worried about that, too, because all this running around killing things can't have a good effect on his mind on top of everything else).

She really doesn't want to blame Rachel. But she wishes she knew what on earth happened so she could understand any of this. So she would know what to blame. So she could fix it, like she always did before.

But her mother's instinct is failing her. Or something. This whole being-a-mom thing is failing her. It's never been easy, being a single mom (and she doesn't want to remember the first years after Chris' death, when all was a hazy cloud of misery and they barely scraped by, she doesn't want to think of feeling so desolate she didn't even care when her own mother had to come and take over because she was too much of a mess to look after herself nevermind a toddler) but these last two years it's been like she's had her control stick yanked from her and she's left unable to stop the inevitable crash from happening. And she knows that eventually that's what has to happen between a mother and her child, because you have to let them go and find their own feet. But it's not supposed to happen like this. There's not supposed to be this drastic a change. (Is there?)

Maybe that's what terrifies her. That she doesn't know how to fix what can't be fixed by her. That she's lost him.

* * *

She is standing over by the fridge, head buried almost inside it looking for a yoghurt she knew she put in there the other day, when she hears the faint click of the front door being closed. For a moment, her heart speeds up, imagining all the dark and bloody outcomes of this (burglars, murderers, rapists, escaped convicts) before she hears the unmistakable shuffling of feet that belong to her son. She relaxes, dark thoughts abandoned instantly. And then freezes up, realizing it's 5 am and he just came in.

Maybe he doesn't see her there, behind the open fridge, as he walks into the unlit kitchen (unlit save from the corner where the light from the open fridge is spilling onto her and the floor and wall so how can he not see that?) and through it, past her, towards the stairs that lead to his room. Maybe he's too wrapped up in whatever he's thinking to notice the world around him. Maybe he's just ignoring her… hoping she'll let it go, she'll ignore him in turn.

"Finn?"

She almost scares herself with her whisper. She isn't sure she wants to get into this now, didn't realize she was going to speak until she did. But that look on his face as he walked by… she thinks she recognized it. Even if she feels powerless to address it now, she has to say something, right? It's 5 am. And he just came _home_. It's not supposed to go like that.

"Mom…."

The word sounds like a plea. To let it go. To leave him be… To help him out of this mess he's in. It sounded like that, too – right? She has to try – right?

"Where were you?"

That didn't come out the way she wanted it to. It's not even what she'd wanted to say. But she doesn't know how to say what she wanted to say. And it's a valid question after all. It's 5 am. He_ just _came home. She should have made it sound a lot harsher.

"Out."

It's barely above a whisper but it's an unmistakable rebuke. He's annoyed. Blocking her off.

"It's 5 am, Finn. Where were you?"

She can't let it go. Why doesn't he sound guilty? She switches on the light. He's standing with his back turned to her, unmoving, as if frozen to the spot. There's something about the way he holds his head, however, that makes her feel like he's got his fingers wrapped around her heart and with every word she's going to extract from him he's going to crush it a little more. It's a weird thought. But she can't shake it.

The moment stretches, second after second racing by, and he's still not said anything. She stares at him from her spot over by the fridge. She feels cold, and she doesn't think it has anything to do with the fridge being open or only wearing a nightgown. There's a tendon at the side of his neck, twitching, and she knows he just did that thing with his jaw that he does when he's frustrated or angry. And then it stills. And his turns even further away from her.

"At Puck's. Playing a game. Lost track of time. Sorry."

She frowns. It doesn't sound right, somehow. She doesn't know why. Maybe if he turned his face and looked at her while he said it, instead of turning to the opposite wall. She fears it means he is lying. No – that's not correct: she knows he is lying - she fears what that means.

But what else could he have been doing? It's not like it's never happened before. He's spent a lot of time at the Puckerman house lately. Or so he says. Maybe it's all been a lie; she didn't pay attention to it when he said it before during the day.

Or maybe she's just reading too much into this. Maybe he's just tired and worn out from playing all night.

How is she supposed to deal with this?

"Fine."

It's not, but she doesn't know how else to express her annoyance with all of this. Any of this. And he knows her well enough to know that that small word doesn't mean it, either.

"We'll talk about this once you got some sleep and I'm back from work."

She's not sure what that will be like, or if they will really talk, but she guesses she'll have the day to organize her thoughts. At least in her line of work she'll have plenty of time to do that.

He doesn't answer - just nods his head once. She stares after him as he simply moves on as if the last few minutes hadn't happened.

"Goodnight," she says, but knows he can't hear her anymore. Still, she has to make an effort.

* * *

That day at work she spends some time trying to understand it all, to make some sense of it – so she can find some way to fix it. Because it cannot go on like it has. She thinks she is partly to blame for the way he is behaving; maybe everything that happened to them in the last year was simply too much for him to deal with, and his only way out is by detaching himself from everything. Maybe she should have paid more attention to him. Maybe she should have been around more. Maybe she should have listened better, or tried to see beyond the obvious.

Maybe she hasn't been a good mom at all.

She hasn't really fixed anything in a long while. When he told her about the baby, all she'd be able to do was hold him and tell him it was going to be alright. How was that fixing anything? She remembers feeling relieved that she could finally do something when she'd allowed Quinn Fabray to stay at their house; but that relief had promptly changed – first to annoyance with the way the girl would treat Finn (she'd never really warmed towards her, there was something coldly calculating about Quinn that she mistrusted from the start – and that had apparently been one of the instances her mother's instinct had proven correct) and then to utter dismay when the truth had come out. She'll never forget the day she packed Quinn's bags for her and dropped her off to Puckerman's. It had been the day she discovered she had a vicious streak in herself; but she did not take kindly of having been taken advantage of, so she took her own revenge by dumping her into the hands of Noah's hysterically screeching mother without feeling even the slightest bit of pity or remorse for Quinn.

She wonders if his renewed friendship with Noah means that he has forgiven Quinn, too. He's always had a big heart (although she's not sure anymore that that's a good thing) so it's not inconceivable. He hasn't mentioned her name since that day. But she knows they're in the Glee club together so she supposes he has had to deal with her in some way or another.

She wonders how he's dealing with Rachel being there, too.

But maybe she _should_ be wondering how he is dealing with _them_. With having a family dumped onto him. With having a step-brother who used to have a crush on him. With having a step-father who accused him of being a homophobe. With having a mom he suddenly has to share with others. A mom who doesn't listen, doesn't pay attention, forces him into all these situations he has no way of knowing how to cope with. She remembers the anger she felt at him when she came home from work to her new home, only to be told that Burt had thrown Finn out of his house. She remembers the disbelief and the shame that filled her when she drove over to their old house where she was sure Finn was hiding at. She remembers yelling at him, pouring out all her disappointment and her rage for messing up this one good thing that had come into her life, for a full hour before she ran out of words. What's worse, she remembers the look in his eyes afterwards; she remembers the pang she got in her heart as she'd realized how some of the things she'd said had affected him; she remembers the way he pulled back from her like a frightened animal when she'd tried to take his hand after that realization.

She wonders how she could have thought she fixed that situation, just because she'd finally coaxed him into talking to her; she'd been horrified at finding out about Kurt's sordid fascination with him, and it'd taken some very uncomfortable talks with Burt before she felt secure in their relationship again. But she'd been more concerned with the status of her own relationship to consider how Finn coped with the aftermath, even if Burt had warmed towards him quickly enough again once he knew the truth.

She thinks that maybe somewhere along the way she's started to add to his problems instead of fixing them for him. She's not sure how to deal with that. She only knows that she's turned out to be a horrible mom.

By the end of the afternoon she has to ask off from work because she can't stop crying.

* * *

_A/N: I would love some honest opinions about this story so far. I have to admit it comes rather easy writing Carole, because I'm a mom myself and I just have to think of all the horrible nightmares I have about having a teenager someday soon, but I'm not sure I'm not overdoing it – and that her mind really works like this. So any opinions are much appreciated. An update should come shortly – I'm halfway into the next bit already. (And a quick heads-up on the other fics – I'm working on some other updates, too)_


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's Note: Let me just say this – I am so, so glad I have such awesome reviewers! Seriously, you have no idea how inspiring it is. I know I have a giant problem with finishing stories I started, and I think one of the reasons is that I keep thinking it's not good enough, so reading your reviews is like ointment to my somewhat bruised self-confidence when it comes to writing._

_Having said that – I am sorry to have to disappoint you, but the mother-son talk in this chapter is not going to be what you might have expected._

_

* * *

_

She's glad the house is empty when she comes home. It's still early. Burt is at the garage, Kurt must be out with his school friends, and Finn… isn't in his room. She's not sure whether she should be relieved he's not there so she doesn't need to have that talk right then, or whether she should be annoyed he skipped the lecture he most likely expected. Either way, she suddenly finds she can't help her eyes from tearing up again as she looks around his empty room.

For some reason, being in this room – even if it doesn't have the so familiar cowboy wallpaper and the slanted roof and everything that made his room in the old house so very much his – makes her miss him so much. Which is a little idiotic, she thinks, since he's not gone far; he's most likely at training or some extra-curricular Glee rehearsal. But maybe the Finn she misses is the old Finn, her Finn, the one that she's not sure ever left the old house when they moved. Maybe they shouldn't have moved so fast. The move had come right on top of his break-up with Rachel, and even though she'd thought it a good idea then that moving house was giving him something to do other than moping around, she is wondering now if it didn't just make things worse.

Had she just helped intensify his sense of loss? Or did it not matter to him?

She hesitates, craving a connection to him and not knowing how to find it; then she walks over to the chair which stands underneath the skylight window that Burt installed. It's been a while since she sat in that chair. But she sits in it now, expecting its old familiarity, but it, too, feels like it's changed more than just an address.

She leans back into it anyway. Maybe if she stays in it a little while longer….

She's never really been in here before; not since the move when all there was in it were boxes and a chair. But it's been almost three months now, and yet the room's still barren of all his clutter; there's nothing but the bed, the chair and a tv on the wall – everything else is _still_ in the boxes piled into a corner. The bed is new: bought for him as a welcoming present (and she guesses also a way of apologizing for their wrong start) by Burt, she hasn't actually seen it assembled as it is. It's bigger than the one he had in the old house, and she's glad about it – she'd felt so bad about not even being able to afford a bed big enough to accommodate his size.

She notices how neatly it's made up, using the blue sheets that are his favorites. For a moment she wonders if he's been trying to turn over a new leaf by making his bed before he leaves, but then she realizes he hasn't slept in it today (she's trying not to think about whether he's ever slept in it at all). Aren't those the sheets she gave him to use when they'd first put up the bed?

Telling herself she is just going to smooth down the pillow (and not at all checking for dust or his scent on the sheets), she gets up and crosses the space between the chair and the bed, but she falters as she's about to touch the top sheet. _What am I doing?_

She stares down at the bed in front of her, notices the slightly bulkier left side of the pillow. Did his head press down the right side? The same question as before goes through her head, but this time she tells herself she has an excuse – she picks up the pillow, fluffing it, making sure the filling material is evenly distributed. But as she does she realises it's his laptop that had the left side raised up higher – the laptop he must have shoved under there before he left. It's sitting there now, the power light blinking on and off. It's not closed all the way.

She stares at it as that uncomfortable feeling of considering something she shouldn't be thinking of crosses her mind. But it's like she can't help herself; she has this need to understand what is going on, and maybe this…? Before she can stop herself or let the guilt take her over completely, she puts the pillow down again and picks up the laptop gingerly, setting it down on the bed and opening it all the way. A touch of the power button and the screen comes back to life.

Google.

The search box has "chastity chain" written into it, but there are no results yet. What is a chastity chain? Why would he look that up? What does it mean to him? For a second she feels an urge to hit the search button and find out what it is, thinking that maybe she can deduct the rest, but then she stops herself.

She notices there are other tabs opened. Clicking from one to another, she goes through them all, searching for some more clues, but the results only puzzle her further: A discussion thread on game cheats, a Wikipedia page on Carole King, a page with old NFL games, a page labeled "how to give a hickey and hiding a hickey", a myspace video page. The page about the hickeys she would probably have found most intriguing if it weren't for the fact that the myspace video he appeared to have been watching was one of Rachel.

Why would he watch a video of the girl he broke up with?

"Carole?"

She twitches violently at the unexpected mention of her name. Her fingers are trembling as she pushes the laptop close again, and she has to close her eyes for a second to steady herself. Guilt and shame washes through her, intensifies the guilt she's already been feeling since the afternoon, and brings back the tears to her eyes. What kind of a mother does this make her? What is he thinking of her now? What explanation would ever make this right?

But Kurt's hand settles on her shoulder before she can find an answer to any of it. "What's wrong…. mom?"

The name comes as an afterthought, and she knows he's only trying to humour her with it. They both know she can never replace his real mother, and she's not been trying to, but he's adopted the name for her whenever he needed to bridge the gap between them. And she's let him; it's helped her keep up the allusion of all-round happiness over the last months (It's nice to have someone to talk to about things she could have shared with a daughter if she'd ever had one). But right now it's the worst thing he could have said to her. She literally feels like falling apart.

Kurt's arms come around her shoulders, pulling her close. She can feel the concern, knows his face would have that mixture of worry and shock on it if she'd look up at him, but all she can do is stand there with her face hidden behind her hands, her head buried against his shoulder as the sobs begin to shake her entire body.

"Shhhhh…. Shhhh…." Is all she hears, and maybe it's that or the comfort of being in someone's embrace but after a while she feels strength returning to her limbs, her mind clearing of the fog inside it. Instantly she pushes herself away from Kurt, not wanting to appear so weak and full of self-pity to him for any longer than she already has. She shouldn't have done this – he shouldn't have seen her like this.

He hands her the box of tissues from Finn's bed's headboard. She takes another moment to compose herself as she loudly blows her nose into it, then dabs her eyes. "Thank you," she hears herself say in a husky voice, and clears her throat. One last sob is threatening to erupt, and she coughs loudly into her hand to cover up for it. When she finally looks up to meet Kurt's eyes, she finds curiosity rather than concern written in them.

"I am guessing this does not actually have anything to do with what you found on Finn's laptop?"

She stares into the space between them. She can barely remember what she found on there now; all she knows right now is the shame of having been caught looking – of having turned out to be _that kind_ of mother.

She finally shakes her head. There is no point denying anything. "I am sorry you had to see that. I just… came in to check on him and found him gone. But he has been so distant lately – I just wanted to find something I could still relate to."

"Did you?" He's looking at her with an expression she can't interpret properly.

"No. " She hasn't felt entirely comfortable talking about Finn with him ever since she found about his crush (which she knows he has abandoned since, but that's not changed her ill-ease about the matter), so she thinks it's better if she says nothing.

"You know what? Let's go downstairs and have a lovely infusion of soothing herbal tea, and then perhaps have a wee little chat about whatever it is you feel comfortable chatting about."

So she lets him take her downstairs. Maybe he's right and that's all she needs, really – a hot beverage and a chat. A little distraction.

* * *

She's letting him take her thoughts off her troubles for a bit; and so she spends some time listening as he goes on and on about Dalton and the Warblers. She knows from previous conversations that the Warblers is the name of his new school's Glee club. They have a competition coming up, and she notices he seems a little on edge about it.

She sips her tea. ("Herbal infusion, Carole, not tea. Saying tea really is so last century.")

"… it's such a challenge, you know? I mean, it's wonderful how they perform and how tight they are, and nothing bad is ever said, but really, that's just it, you see? Nothing bad is ever said! There's no life in these boys, they're having fun, yes, and you should see how smoothly some of them move when they dance, just the other day we were rehearsing this song and it turned into this impromptu act, for lack of a better word for it, and it was so smooth and flowing, and oh, you should have seen it! It was really marvelous!"

She nods, and lets his bubbly enthusiasm wash over her. And yet for all his exuberance, she knows that at the bottom of it all he isn't quite as happy as he makes it seem.

"… But yes, despite all this dancing, they are so set in their ways, so terribly restricted in their outlets. Sure, they've opened up a bit since we got them to sing outside of school, but everything still remains so rigidly set. Although I was quite amazed Blaine got them to perform in front of those girls the other day, and that song… oh that song was just crazy, and the soap bubbles. It was more like something we would have done, you know? It felt fake. It felt so much like just an act, and I couldn't stop thinking about what it would have been like if Mercedes had been there. Or Brittany and Mike with their dancing. Oh my God, it would have been so much more natural…"

She watches him as he stops talking altogether, his thoughts apparently drifting off into a different space. After all that had happened to him at McKinley, it's surprising that he seems to be missing it, but she's fairly certain that that's what's bothering him.

"You miss it, don't you?"

His head turns, and he stares at her, his face truly unreadable for a moment. But she knows him a lot better now than she did a few months ago. She knows he's just putting on an act, trying to show he's above being surprised or touched by anything. And then his haughty what-would-you-know-about-anything-I-feel face slips, his shoulders sag a bit, and he casts his eyes down to the ground.

"I miss them."

She doesn't say anything. She doesn't need to – he's good at doing all this self-reflecting on his own, without needing the occasional push into the right direction.

"It's ironic, really. I feel like I've grown much closer to them since I'm no longer around them every day. Maybe that's what life does to you – it makes you appreciate everything much more and puts it into a new light. I never thought I would miss them so much…"

He's off into his own thoughts again, leaving her marveling at the way his mind works. She finds herself wondering what life would have been like if he had been her son instead of Finn. Would she have been a bad mother to him?

At least she wouldn't have had to worry about a pregnant girlfriend. (What about finding another boy in his bed, though…?)

She thinks she would have had an easier time accepting his homosexuality than Burt has been; although she admires him for the way he's dealing with it now. And as she thinks of all the ways she's seen him dealing with it, she suddenly doubts that she could have done the same. She's failed at being the kind of mom her straight son needs – how could she have dealt with the additional stress of raising a gay son? No, she's just kidding herself thinking it would have been easier.

The thought drives the smile from her face and returns her once more to the edge of despair she'd hoped to distract herself from. But she knows she can't let it, she can't let herself go again – not in front of Kurt, not in front of anyone.

She realized she'd tuned him out, she hadn't even realized he started speaking again. It takes an effort to force herself to listen to him again.

"… don't miss it, you know? Them, yes, I mean some of them, but the club? They are in such chaos right now, and I don't think they even realize it. I mean, imagine, from what I heard they're self-destructing. We have regionals coming up and I heard they can't even decide on what to do for that! It'll be so easy to win—"

She watches his expression change to one close to physical hurt, but doesn't think he realizes it even himself that his heart still seems to be more with his old Glee club than with his new one.

"—and Rachel told me Quinn's back in the celibacy club, and Noah Puckerman and Brittany and some others along with her. Can you imagine that? Them of all people? It's like Mysoginy Central under a new name."

Carole's eyebrow rises a notch, confusion rising. Quinn Fabray and Noah Puckerman in the celibacy club?

"—But then Rachel's not one to talk, she's part of it herself, which at least makes sense. But Quinn? Rachel told me there was a mark on her neck the other day, which looked suspiciously like a hickey, but when questioned the Queen Bee – that's our nickname for Quinn – said she had an unfortunate incident with a curling iron. But that's really just a-"

The rest of Kurt's speech doesn't register anymore.

_Quinn Fabray._

_Quinn Fabray had a hickey on her neck._

"_How to give a hickey and hide a hickey."_

_Chastity Chain. Celibacy Club._

The cup of tea in her hand crashes down onto the saucer with a noise that stops Kurt dead. She feels his eyes on her but she's oblivious to what he might be thinking now.

_Quinn Fabray with a hickey on her neck. Finn looking at a page about giving a hickey. And hiding one._

_Quinn Fabray using the first excuse on that page._

Her hand clamps over her mouth to stop herself from releasing whatever noise is threatening to issue from her mouth. She notices her hand shaking against her lips, doesn't know how long she can stop herself.

Suddenly everything's painfully clear.

"Carole..?"

She registers the rising panic in Kurt's voice, but it's only mirrored by her own panicky thoughts.

And then, instead of the white noise filling her head, she feels the shock spread through her insides, where it churns her stomach. With a loud screeching of wood on tiles, she staggers up from the chair, staggers through the kitchen past a bewildered Kurt, and to the nearest bathroom. The hand in front of her mouth is all that keeps the bile inside, until she can release it into the toilet bowl.

It's all over a few seconds later, but the thing inside her heart, the panic, the shock, the despair is still there. She's not even sure what to call it, it hurts enough just thinking of it.

_How can he? How? _

She thinks this is the moment she truly lost Finn. The Finn she knew and understood, or could at least try to understand and feel for had truly gotten lost somewhere. The Finn she knows would never have touched Quinn again.

She doesn't know if there's anything left of her son anymore.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: So here's the next installment, and the long-awaited mother-son talk. But I think it'll spoil you enough about the outcome of that when I take this opportunity to say that we're far from the end of the story. It's become all about Carole's journey to coming to grips with the changes a mother has to accept over the course of her children's growth, and Finn is – as we all know – going through a particularly trying time right now. Anyway – enjoy! (and leave reviews!)_

_By the way, "The Space Around This Heart" has been updated recently (and might be again over the next few days) so feel free to read up on how all this is still wrong months later. (But don't take it as a sign of Carole's failure as a mother)_

* * *

By the time Burt gets home the only thing that has survived from the mix of emotions of that afternoon is anger. Or actually: seething, blood-boiling-in-your-veins rage as she's trying to make sense of it all. She has no idea where it's come from, or even that she's capable of feeling this strongly, but there it is.

That one moment, that tiny little connection she'd made in the afternoon, it's brought her entire world crashing down. Maybe it had already been teetering on the brink of something, but she'd had no idea it would be anything like this.

She still doesn't understand it. She can't put her head around it. Every time she tries it makes her head want to explode with questions crowding in on her. But most of all, it's just incomprehensible. She tries to look at it from his point of view, but that's making it even worse because she can't.

She just can't. She can't get into his head. It's closed off, just as incomprehensible.

How can he? How can he even think of being with that girl again? After everything she put him through, how could he bring himself to be with her again… to forgive her? Has he somehow pushed it from his mind? From his heart? Has he somehow forgotten it all? The great injustice of her actions? Even just considering talking to her is enough to get her own blood boiling with the intensity of her dislike for the girl. To think that her boy, her wonderful innocent boy – the boy she had given birth to, that she had raised - could push everything so far out of his mind, out of his heart, that he would want to look at her again, kiss her, touch her in an intimate way… it's all just too much for her to think of.

What is wrong with him?

Something has to be wrong. Something has to be wrong about all this. Maybe she's just wrong about it, and reading too much into it. Maybe him looking at a page of excuses that she is using is just coincidence. A freak accident.

But no, it's not. She knows. She wishes she didn't but she knows. It makes sense – in a twisted way that she can't understand.

"Carole? Kurt told me you're not feeling well. What is wrong?"

Burt's expression is full of worry and concern and she can't help giving him a weak smile in return. He is such a wonderful man and she's so happy with him. So so happy. She doesn't know if she deserves that much happiness. Even now, he's sitting down next to her on her side of their bed, putting his arm around her and she leans against it, marveling at this feeling of being able to lean into him, of feeling safe and loved. It's so much more than she'd ever expected to have again. A little miracle in itself.

Maybe this other thing now is fate's way of making sure she can appreciate it all the better.

"It's nothing… just… work stressed me out. A patient I was close to…"

She's thought of telling him the truth (because he deserves nothing but honesty) but this is something between her and Finn. This is them. She doesn't think Burt needs to be involved. Not yet. She thinks it's one of those times a story is best told after everything's said and done. And she still has to do that.

"… he passed away. I'm having a little more trouble than usual dealing with it. "

Her husband (the name alone still warms her heart a little bit) looks at her for a moment, and she closes her eyes. She doesn't want to have to look into his eyes because it's so tempting to just let go of all her frustration and anger and take the offered shoulder to cry her heart out onto it, but that would need more explanations now.

"You rest then. I'll bring something up to you."

He kisses her forehead as his hand rubs across the back of her neck soothingly. She just nods, basking in this love.

And then he leaves again, as quietly as he's come. And she's still sitting there, trying to work all this out in her head. His presence has calmed her, she thinks.

But she's still no closer to knowing what to do – or even how to feel about this. How to deal with this. She knows something has to be done, but for once she's doubting every possible move she could make. All she knows is that something has to be done. She has to do something.

Because it can't be allowed, right? Finn has to be wrong somehow. He must have gone wrong somehow, must be in so much pain or just…. Maybe what the doctors had once told her about him is true, and he's just a little too slow, not clever enough to connect all the dots. Could he never have understood what had gone on?

That has to be it!

Maybe just he never understood- he'd never grasped, somehow, the damage Quinn had done to him. To his heart. Either he is so lost and confused and just plain hurt… or he simply never understood any of it. But how can she think that of him?

She doesn't know what to think. There has to be some kind of explanation for this. Some way for this to make sense without being what she thinks it is. Because everything else… everything else just feels like a kind of betrayal.

There has to be something she can do to make him come to his senses. One way or another.

But what?

* * *

She wakes up to a noise coming from downstairs. It's faint but unmistakable, and for a moment she wonders that it was enough to wake her. Then she realizes that it's what she's been waiting for without knowing it.

She knows it's him. One glance at the clock shows it's not as late as the night before but late enough. For a moment she hesitates, wondering if this is really a good idea. Somehow she thinks she should be more prepared for this - she should have a plan; she's almost certain he's been coming home this late so he could avoid having to talk to anyone. Especially her.

But for all the doubts about this being the right decision she knows she is going to try talking him - she can't not try.

Pulling on her bathrobe she slips out of the bed, and quietly through the room. Burt's low snores tell her he's not noticed her leaving his side. For a moment she lingers in the doorframe, looking at him as he lies there, blissful in his sleep. He looks so at peace - she can't help feeling a little envious of that peace; but looking at him like this, she feels a strange sense of calm wash over her. He never fails to make her feel better, just having him near her is the kind of reassurance she needs.

It occurs to her that this is what they mean when they say that someone is someone else's rock. He is her rock, and there's nothing strange or silly about that.

She blows him a kiss, even though he's sleeping. It doesn't matter. She just feels like she has to express her love somehow, without waking him up. The thought of him, of the warmth that spreads through her when she's thinking about what he means to her, stays with her on her way downstairs.

Maybe she can do this.

* * *

Their roles are almost reversed this time. She finds him going through the contents of the fridge, his face glowering at it in frustration.

"You're late."

He twitches violently at the sound of her voice, and she watches him freeze for a moment before he releases a loud breath into the fridge. And shrugs. "Not as late as last night."

She stares at his back, trying to think of what to say next - realizing she's run out of words already. It feels like they've had this conversation before; she feels like she's walking on quicksand.

It's never been more difficult to talk to him. She looks on as he moves from the fridge to the storage cupboard next to it, scanning it for something edible.

"Are you hungry? I can make you something."

She's reverting to what she's always known best – typical mother stuff. Cooking. Making sure he's fed. Making sure he's not going hungry.

He shrugs again, throws himself down onto a chair on the other side of the cooking island. "Sure… Ummm, thanks."

She takes a package of microwave jumbo mac'n'cheese – the last remaining one that had survived the move - from the back of the cupboard and busies herself emptying the bag of macaroni into a microwave dish. As she's moving over to the sink to top it with water, she tries to think of a way to broach the subject of Quinn, but it's as if her mind is wiped of all thoughts. She looks across the island at him. His head is propped up on his elbow, his eyes watching his index finger drawing circles onto the counter top with in a lazy, slow motion.

"So… we said we were going to have a talk."

She's talking to the microwave rather than him. Her eyes watch the bowl turn around slowly inside the device. She doesn't really know why she said it, only that she's now vaguely afraid of his reaction. Just because they need to have this talk doesn't mean she wants to have it.

"We had Glee practise. I couldn't wait for you to finish your shift, sorry."

She doesn't know if it's not just an excuse, but the microwave pings loudly at that moment and her thoughts are distracted by looking after his food again. Taking out two squares of processed cheese, she empties the sachet of cheese sauce over the macaroni and adds the cheese squares, momentarily busying herself by stirring the mess in the bowl until it's a homogenous mass of orange goo. She sets it in front of him, and then rummages through the silverware drawer for a spoon.

"There. "

She slides the spoon over the island, and he catches it. "We can talk now if you want," he says, and stuffs a half a spoonful into his mouth, chewing noisily and sucking in air to stop from burning himself on the hot food.

She knows that he thinks she's not going to try talking about anything important while he's still eating.

"So what did you do today?" she asks, when he's on his second – tiny – bite.

He gives her a reproachful look, and mutters, "I told you, Glee practishh!" as he's trying to talk around the food in his mouth.

"All day long?" she asks, not sure if she wants to believe it. But Kurt had said the McKinley glee club was having problems – a day of rehearsals might make sense in that case.

"We have Regionals next week," he says, this time pausing his spoon in mid-air while he's answering.

A day of rehearsals… but it is one in the morning. That seems a little excessive. She remembers the previous year – they'd had rehearsals every day, but never into the night. Maybe that's changed now, but she doesn't know.

She studies his face while he goes on eating. She thinks there's something there, something of a shadow, something he's uncomfortable about, but she's not certain. Her faith in her own judgment when it comes to reading him is shaken.

"You had Glee rehearsal until one in the morning?"

She watches as he pauses his spoon before it can sink back into the bowl, and he stares ahead of him for a moment before he finally looks up at her. There's a grin stealing onto his lips, dancing around his eyes in that uniquely silly boyish way he's kept since early childhood. "No, it takes half an hour to get home so we had rehearsal until half past midnight," he says, smirking at her cheekily.

"Finn!" She's never liked it when he's using sarcasm. She likes it even less now when she's not at all sure if it's not just being used to cover up a lie.

"Okay, fine," he says, and shovels a bigger spoonful into his mouth, chewing hastily and finally swallowing with an audible gulp before finishing his sentence, " we hung out for a while after rehearsal."

"Ah."

She's resigning herself to watching him eat. She still doesn't know how to bring up Quinn in this conversation without seeming too obvious about it. Hoping for him to say something that'd give her an opening isn't the best idea.

"So how was your day?"

For a moment her breath catches. This is so much like the old Finn, almost the return of one of their little habits from their life before Burt came into hers. They'd meet over dinner or lunch or whatever meal they'd have the luxury of sharing and tell each other how their day had gone. She doesn't know when the last time was that he asked about her day. (But she's almost certain it's before Quinn had come to stay with them. Another thing she dislikes the girl for: disrupting family traditions.)

And then, just like that, it comes to her. It's not foolproof, it's not perfect, but it should tell her all she needs to hear. Even if it's something she doesn't like having to do.

"Exhausting," she finally replies to his question, and then goes for it before she can let her conscience convince her not to. "So were you all at the Fabray's house?"

His spoon clatters into the bowl loudly as it slips from his grasp. "Huh? What?"

"Traffic was bad, I had to take a detour," she hastens to explain, hoping he'll believe her. She's never lied so deliberately to him before now. "So I ended up going past their house and saw a lot of cars parked outside. "

He's picked up the spoon again, the expression on his face somewhere between confused and disbelieving. "What? No, there weren't any cars in front of her house; you must have looked at the wrong place."

She doesn't think he realizes he's on his way to betraying himself. As it is, she finds she's strangely nervous now that she's so close to getting what she wanted to hear; her knuckles are stark white as she's gripping the edge of the island, trying to stop herself from showing how much it's affecting her.

"I'm sure it was the house. It's the only one with that fake marble finish in their street," she says, barely managing to keep her voice steady.

"But there weren't any cars!" He's quick to reply, his face totally unguarded now, his mind paying no heed to what he's saying as he's trying his best to prove her wrong. "Her mom's away all weekend, and her car is in the garage, and mine was around the corn-"

And then the penny drops for him.

She watches him as he comes to realize he's just made a monumental error, and the color drains from his face, leaving him with a pale, panicky expression she'd last seen when she'd caught him with Quinn's sonogram. But his face then had crumpled up and he'd broken into tears; this time she watches as his expression turns stony.

"You never were at Noah's, were you?" she asks, her voice low. She feels like shouting; she's never felt more like shouting at him, walking over to him, grabbing him and shaking him until his wits return but…

But. She's not sure what's holding her back now.

"Mom..."

She stares at him as he stares back at her, and she's willing him to try and talk himself out of this, try and give her some explanation that would make more sense. Try and admit it all so she doesn't need to hold back anymore.

"With her mother not there, you spent last night with Quinn. And today. And probably all those other times you pretended to be at Noah's."

_Please Finn, please baby, please tell me it's not true, tell me it's just a mistake, tell me it doesn't mean what I think it means, just please don't let it be her, please…._

"Mom..." he says, his voice sounding strangled. "Drop it. Please...?"

But she has no use for his plea. She can't drop it now. Her eyes bore into his as she stares at him across the island. She's desperately clinging to her resolve to do the last shreds of self-control. "You think I should? Can you tell me why you think I should be fine with my sixteen year old son spending his nights alone with a girl?"

"I ..." he begins, his voice trembling, but then breaks off and looks at her in surprise.

"Yes?" His expression is seriously throwing her off.

"I... you- You're not upset about it being Quinn?" Disbelief is replacing surprise on his face, and she thinks she can see fear alongside it.

But his question is the last straw. It's all she needed to lose that grip she still held onto her temper – onto everything she's been holding in since the afternoon. "What? Yes! I'm livid, Finn, just thinking about it!"

She surprises herself by not shouting after all. Somehow it seems like all the fight has gone out of her – she's been fighting this entire mess in her mind ever since the afternoon, and she just had it turn from feared suspicion to painful truth. Instead of a shout, she barely manages to get the words out loud enough, her voice is cracking.

Maybe it's the look on his face – concern and fear mixed together – or the memory of the afternoon turning into night and Burt's sleeping face - her realization of him being her rock – but it brings her back to herself more clearly. Back to the thoughts she had before she fell asleep. The thoughts of needing to find a way to fix this. Of wondering whether he'd understood any of what that girl had done to him. Of finding some way to help him out of this mess.

He is still staring at her, his face for once openly and honestly showing his own upset. She just isn't certain whether he's upset about her being upset, or about what mess he's put himself in.

"In fact, I'm not sure this isn't just a very very bad dream. Because that would be the only explanation of how you'd ever consider being with her again," she finally says, trying to bring the conversation back to a point where he'll actually say something. Anything.

But as she's looking at him hoping for some kind of reaction – some kind of explanation – he closes his eyes. His shoulders sag a little as he sighs. And then that mask is back, slipping over his face like a dreaded enemy of her worst nightmares. He's closing himself off again.

He can't do that. She can't let him.

"Tell me, is she the reason you broke up with Rachel?" It hasn't occurred to her before now, but in her frantic search for something to say that would draw him out of his shell it bubbles up in her mind now. "Please tell me you didn't dump her f—"

"NO!" he presses out forcefully, his eyes flying open again, the mask slipping completely as he stares at her with an expression she thinks she's never seen before on him and has no idea what it means. But then he catches himself, gulps as his eyes move from left to right and back again, his jaw muscles twitching as he's fighting for control over his reactions. "Rachel… no, I didn't- - - I could never!"

She's taken aback by this reaction. But before she can even open her mouth, before she can say anything, he surprises her again. "She doesn't even know! She can't know! It would…"

He looks at her like he's seen a ghost, and she's not sure if he's talking to her or himself now. The look on his face scares her, though – it's almost the opposite of the mask in its intensity, and it's the first time she thinks she is getting a glimpse of some true emotion.

And then, just like before, he seems to catch on, and instantly the mask is back. As she's watching him, more puzzled by all of this than anything else, he closes his eyes again, and she knows he's trying to shut her out once more.

"Finn?" She tries not to sound as scared as she feels by this strange behavior.

"Rachel was… I've only been with Quinn for two weeks now. It's nothing to do with Rachel," he says, after another long pause, and he seems to think better of what he wanted to say a second into opening his mouth. She wonders what he was going to say before changing his mind, his voice has dropped to something of a monotone mumble.

"Then let's get back on topic. You still haven't explained this—"

"Mom!" Her insistence to discuss Quinn is clearly causing him some kind of distress, and she doesn't understand why. "Please… just drop it, please? It's - it's just what it is. She and I - she's changed – she loves me, she really does, and we - we belong together. We work. I forgave h—"

"You forgave her," she says with a hollow laugh, trying in vain to keep the contempt out of her voice. Hearing him say all this just makes everything worse. "Are we talking about the same person here, Finn? The girl I'm thinking about cheated on you with your best friend, lied about a baby that wasn't yours, belittled you, made fun of you, forced responsibilities on you that you couldn't possibly deal with at your age, and turned your entire life upside down and inside out. Our lives. Do you remember the day you came home to tell me about all this, the day you found out? Do you remember any of the pain you felt then? Do you remember breaking down crying, telling me you'd never forgive her for this?"

She watches him flinch at every memory she invokes from the past, and she knows it's getting to him. Maybe he really just hadn't thought of it – maybe he'd just pushed all of that pain from last year into some place in his mind, along with the memories of it. People do that; in her line of work, she knows it only too well. Maybe he just needs this little reminder now, and it'll all be okay again. Maybe if she can—

"I remember everything, mom." He interrupts her thoughts – hopes – and it's in his voice, too. A little bit of that pain is still in there, she thinks. "But I still forgave her. She only lied because she didn't want to lose me. Because I was an awful boyfriend. But she saw past that and chose me as the father of that child. Me. Not Puck. She could have had him instead, but she only wanted me. And everything she did afterwards she did because she didn't want to lose me. Because she loved me, and I drove her into Puck's arms, and she hated herself for it so much and it would never have happened if I hadn't—first- "

She stares at him in disbelief, not knowing how he could have reached this conclusion. It all sounds like skewered, faulty logic to her. "You hadn't first what?" she asks when he seems to have run out of words.

"Cheated on her… with—with Rachel," he forces out, and his voice is a low croak.

"You what?" Her own voice sounds shrill even in the large kitchen, but she doesn't care if anyone might wake up from her yelling.

The look he gives her in response is so full of misery that it almost floors her, however. His voice is barely audible when he speaks on, his eyes squeezed shut against the blaze in her own eyes. "I k-kissed her, and- and couldn't stop thinking about her, and then one time she kissed me when- when I tried to get her to come back to Glee, and we had this – this connection, it's kinda crazy, she always makes me want to be someone better, someone worthy of her, and she said once she felt the same about me, but she shouldn't because I don't make anyone a better person, I just cause them pain and make them do stupid mistakes and have them run to Puck for comfort. It's not their fault, see? It's all me, I have to fix this, it's me who messed up, not them, and now I am!"

He's almost out of breath after it's all out, his eyes two dark pools of more despair than she's ever seen him in. She stares at this specter in front of her eyes for a moment longer, her mind undecided what to think exactly (Oh God, how could he ever come up with something this messed up?), but then something inside her snaps. She doesn't care about any of the other stuff, she doesn't want to analyze his every word anymore, or question his motives: isn't it enough that he's going through so much pain? She crosses the space between them, and pulls him close to her chest, wrapping him up in her arms.

It's been so long since they did that. Since it's just been mother and son. It feels so good, to be able to do that again now, knowing – hoping – that her embrace is a source of comfort to him. For a few long moments, she allows herself to wallow in it – this feeling of being a mom, of being able to do something, contribute something useful.

But as the moments pass, and she feels his breath even out, she can't help but go over what he said. She's almost certain whatever he thinks he feels for Quinn is just born out of some false sense of obligation towards her. While his feelings for Rachel, however…. He hadn't even seemed to realize he'd started to talk about her in the present tense, his words making it easy to forget he wasn't with her anymore.

His feelings for Rachel had always been a source of wonder to her and Burt as the months had gone by. She never would have expected someone at their age to be so… dedicated to each other, but yet they had been. She'd never forget the time he'd been watching a program about New York City with them, and he'd stunned them all by telling them what part he and Rachel would once upon a time live in, and why the location they'd chosen was the best because obviously it was more suitable for raising a large family. Everything with her always seemed so much more serious than what he'd shared with Quinn – judging on what she'd witnessed when the girl lived in their house. And yet…

There was something in his speech that disturbed her, and she couldn't quite place it.

"Oh baby, I'm sorry about all this. But you shouldn't think you need to do this out of some obligation to Quinn. You should go with what your heart tells you. Nothing less. And don't tell me your heart isn't really with Rachel rather than Quinn!"

His arms drop from around her waist fast, and she pulls back to look at him. His eyes are slightly puffy, a little red-rimmed from a few tears he seems to have shed while in her embrace, but the expression in them is quickly fading from full emotion to stony mask again.

He takes a long shuddery breath, and then stares at a point behind her on the kitchen cabinet. "It doesn't matter. I'm her friend. That's all she needs. She's going to be a star one day, and I won't hold her back."

"Finn!" She doesn't believe a word of it. Mask or not, she knows now how much it hurts him. She can't believe he'd just Rachel like that, out of some misplaced sense of chivalry or whatever this is.

"And she's not like Quinn. She didn't have an excuse. Not one that matters. But she did it just to hurt me. If you love someone, you don't want to hurt them. You want to keep them safe, see them happy. At all cost, right?"

She looks at him, trying her best to guess what he is talking about, but her best isn't coming up with any solutions. "She did what, baby? How did she hurt you?"

He stares ahead of himself, his face set in a grimace that isn't quite the expressionless mask yet, but still shows some hint of his misery. "She cheated. With Puck."

As soon as the words are out he launches himself out of his chair; he's past her and running up the steps to his room before she even has time to react. But she makes no effort to call him back now.

He leaves her standing there, her mind reeling from this new revelation. Once again, she has no idea what to think. And a solution – a way to fix this – seems even more of a problem finding now.


End file.
